News in JPIC News

A Catholic church was bombed in the conflict-torn northern Shan State as renewed fighting intensified between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups. In an ironic twist, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Mongkoe Township near the Chinese border was hit by air strikes on Dec. 3, the very feast day of St. Francis Xavier

There is a need for deep repentance and a change in direction on the part of all those who control the resources of the planet, argues the archbishop of Canterbury. Discontent is growing in western democracies as evidenced by Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the rise of populism. Dr Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Anglican communion shares his views with La Croix.

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has written a letter to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in reference to the situation in the country. The chief of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi sj confirmed the news without giving information about the letter’s contents, on Monday.

Candidates in this month's elections signed a covenant for "truthful, responsible, upright, transparent, and honest" polls during a Mass led by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle at the Manila Cathedral on May 2. Of the five presidential candidates, only administration candidate Manuel Roxas and opposition standard bearer Jejomar Binay attended the event.

As many as 1,700 crosses have been removed from Catholic and Protestant churches in Zhejiang since early 2014. Many churches tried to negotiate with the authorities. Some later organized peaceful protests or wrote letters opposing what they see as a violation of their religious freedom, as did overseas Catholic and Protestant clergy.

“I’m not a politician any more,” she says as she shows me round the Hurtado Centre in London’s East End, where the JRS provides targeted support for those driven to destitution by Britain’s ever-more draconian asylum process. “I do something else now.” Teather believes she is where she is meant to be; to be specific, where God means her to be.

Senior British politicians have put pressure on David Cameron with a letter urging that the UK joins other nation states in recognising the persecution of Christians in the Middle East as “genocide”. Last week the Lithuanian parliament become the first EU state to recognise legally that religious genocide is occurring across the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and northern Africa.

The bell rang out from the Carmelite monastery in the Syrian mountains between Damascus and Homs. It would be audible to Islamic State (IS) jihadists, whose front line is less than three miles away. It said defiantly: “We are still here.” The terrorists captured Qara, the local ­village, burnt the churches, dug up the Christian graves and scattered the bones. The friars and sisters had survived only by taking refuge in an old Roman tower where they were protected by Muslim friends. Now the village has been recaptured by the Syrian army.

The Catholic Church in India is taking its cue from Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment in observing its annual Day for the Liberation of Dalits. "As we take care of nature, we have to take care of the marginalized and oppressed people in our country," Father Devasagaya Raj, secretary of the Indian Catholic bishops’ office for dalits and lower classes, told ucanews.com.

After four contentious resolutions on Sri Lanka, the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Oct. 1 adopted a "consensus resolution" for foreign judges and prosecutors to help Sri Lanka try those accused of serious crimes during the decades-long civil war.

Goa, a Catholic stronghold and India's smallest state, is known for its white sand beaches and palm-fringed villages and is an attraction for both national and international tourists. As people migrated to Goa from across India in the past two decades, land prices have soared and become preferred investments.

The president of a Jesuit university in Mindanao expressed concern over the Philippine government's decision to arm paramilitary groups that double as private armies for mining companies in the restive region.

Goa, former Portuguese colony and a Catholic stronghold in Western India, has for the first time this century shown a marinal increase in the Christian population. Religion-based data for the 2012 census release last month shows and increase of 6,560 Christian within the past decade,...

The response of many Europeans to the plight of refugees arriving on the continent’s shores is one of solidarity, a principle at the heart of the original European project, inspired by Catholic Social Teaching. But while the people embrace solidarity, the politicians appear to have forgotten it.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Britain today are hungry because they cannot afford to buy or cook themselves food. For this to be happening in the world’s fifth-largest economy is nothing short of appalling.

As long as we fail to integrate this catastrophe into the account of the past century we transmit to our children, we fail to apprehend the chain of events that leads all the way to the present and to the atrocities perpetrated against Christians in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya during the last few months, which our media prefers to forget.

Whilst some travel from London to the Middle East to support the brutally intolerant ISIS hate-machine, Woolwich electronica band Ooberfuse have just returned from a different mission to ISIS- frontline town Erbil… they delivered a message of hope to the beleaguered inhabitants of the improvised displacement camps springing up in Erbil’s dusty environs.

New policy sets out how temples will help maintain stability. The Communist Party chief in Tibet has ordered all Buddhist monasteries to fly China’s national flag in a policy report setting out how Beijing aims to harness temples to fight separatism in the restive province.

It was a long day for students of Central Mindanao University in Maramag town in the province of Bukidnon. Many of them were rushing to catch a ride and get home before dinner. In December, darkness arrives early in this part of the world.

Christ-child remains deeply unwelcome in the offices of the Chinese Communist party (CPC). Since Mao Zedong died in 1976, two things have grown exponentially: the economy and religion – and specifically Christianity. Not only is China now the largest economy in the world, it is set to become the most Christian country within the next couple of decades.